Reincarnation in Hojo-no-Umi : Children of Male Delusion

Abstract

When one reads Hojo-no-Umi, one must be struck with this; most of the characters in the text have neither brothers nor sisters, and, more importantly, there can be seen a kind of reincarnation without any blood relation between parents and child. Shigekuni Honda, who is characterized as a man who cannot be a "father," experiences reincarnation. In this wish-fulfillment, he realizes his dream of establishing a chronological line from fathers to sons not by means of female reproduction, but of male partheogenesis. In other words, the reincarnation in Hojo-no-Umi is the product of male desire, which I would like to name "children of male delusion."